


if you could be a colour, you would be gold

by Anonymous



Category: SEVENTEEN (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Angst with a Happy Ending, Dogs, Established Relationship, Fluff, Fluff and Angst, Happy Ending, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Minor Character Death
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-28
Updated: 2019-12-28
Packaged: 2021-02-24 20:47:19
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,034
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22004218
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/
Summary: Seungcheol hurts sometimes, the bandages on old wounds unravelling, but he knows he will be okay because he has Joshua to piece him back together again.
Relationships: Choi Seungcheol | S.Coups/Hong Jisoo | Joshua
Comments: 7
Kudos: 35
Collections: WIP OLYMPICS: WINTER 2019/20, YMMH FIC FEST, to love and to lose





	if you could be a colour, you would be gold

**Author's Note:**

> For YMMH Fic Fest
> 
> Prompt #Y104
> 
> !!TRIGGER WARNING!!
> 
> There are some minor allusions to a suicide attempt so if that makes you feel uncomfortable in any way, please feel free to exit. Otherwise, I hope you like my contribution to the YMMH Fic Fest. I swear it's really not as sad/dark a fic as it seems.

Seungcheol trails his fingers across the wooden mantle of their fireplace, fingertips dancing across the silver frames that line its surface. He stops short at one in particular - the smiling face of a young man with his arms thrown around an equally smiling golden retriever. His lips quirk up in response just as he feels a pair of arms wrap themselves around his waist. 

A chin hooks over his shoulder before a voice speaks softly into his ear. 

“What are you thinking about, Cheollie?” The voice asks, smile apparent in the question. 

Seungcheol relaxes into the hold, draping an arm over the ones around his waist. “Hmm, just you, Josh.”

A resounding bark sounds from somewhere behind him and he laughs. “And Nugget, of course.”

“Oh?” Joshua asks, nuzzling deeper into the crook of his neck. “What about?”

“Just the day we met,” Seungcheol answers, threading his fingers lightly through Joshua’s. “You changed my life that day, you know? I don’t know where I’d be if it wasn’t for you two.”

“Stop,” Joshua hushes.

“I’m being serious, Josh,” Seungcheol replies, turning around in his arms so that he’s facing Joshua. 

Joshua smiles and leans forward, pressing a soft kiss against Seungcheol’s lips before pressing their foreheads together. 

“I know, babe. I know.”

Seungcheol’s thoughts wander back to that day, warm in a different way to the feeling of Joshua’s arms around his waist - much more uncomfortable, sticky even, in the way the humidity had settled like a second layer atop his skin. He can still hear the rushing of the waves, loud but not louder than the rushing of his heart - as the sun beat down like a furnace on him. He’d been like that for over an hour by then, his feet buried in sand that was just a touch too hot, skin burnt almost raw from the harsh summer sun. But still, he stood, unmoving, as if he had been carved out of the cliff face that hung over the other end of the beach.

He had been holding on to the letter, it’s weight in his hand almost negligible to its weight on his heart. He knew what that letter said, knew it by heart from the hundred times he’d read it - over and over again as though hoping that maybe at some point the writing would change or that he would wake up from whatever sick dream he had hoped he was in. Of course, it hadn’t been a dream, and those words had carved their way into his heart the same way a part of him wanted them carved into his wrists.

He had cried, of course, when he’d first read it, the tears an unending stream as they wore grooves in his face leaving salt in their wake. Then he had stopped, and that was when the silence set in, followed by the numbness that settled like a shroud over his bones. He couldn’t remember how long he had stayed like that, letter hanging limp from his hand as he remained hunched over the dining table, the only sound being the words ringing in his ears.

_We regret to inform you, Mr Choi Seungcheol, that your partner has been killed in the line of duty._

It should have been him, he had told himself, should have been him on the other end of that barrel, should have been him on that case, should have at least been there _with him_. But no, he had been hundreds of miles away, in Busan, at a wedding he hadn’t needed to be at while his partner chased down a lead that he had gotten just before he’d left.

_Just go. I’ll be fine, I’m just going to have a look-see._ Famous last words. His look-see had landed him in the middle of a place where his badge alone would have gotten him killed, had gotten him killed.

_It should have been you_ , the voice in his head had told him and he had agreed wholeheartedly. He sent in his resignation that day.

He had gone to the funeral, of course, he had gone, but the silence in his head was deafening, made even louder by the presence of the coffin, shiny black wood gleaming menacingly at him. He hadn’t been able to make it beyond past the eulogies, had walked right off the lawn, the silence thundering in his head, the letter gripped in his hands.

Somehow, he had ended up there, on the beach under the noonday sun, his black jacket long since discarded somewhere along the way. Jihoon had loved the sea, he had thought, the name slipping through the silence in his head for the first time in days. Salt stung his face as it stung the corners of his eyes, but he had let it, cheeks long-since scrubbed raw by it. 

It was only after what had felt like hours that his legs decided it was time for him to move, bearing him closer and closer to the water’s edge. With every step he took, the waves had crashed through the silence, had brought him enough into himself to be aware of where his body was taking him. A part of him, somewhere deeper, untouched by the numbness, had screamed at himself, at the world, at anything to stop, or for a sign to stop. But all he had received was the waves crashing against his feet and the wind in his hair, the tug on his ankles only beckoning him further into the ocean’s grasp.

He had been knee-deep, had felt the way the riptide had become a pull - the ocean’s hands around his legs - instead of a tug, when the light came crashing into him in the form of a giant dog. The letter had gone flying, ripped from his hands by the wind and taken out to sea at the same time as he was knocked over by the overexcited animal. The water had hit him like a slap, cold and cutting against his back, and he had felt the numbness recede, taking the throbbing silence with it.

Suddenly, everything had become too real, the cold of the water around him, the sting of the sea against his sunburnt skin, the heat of the sun against his face. It had been overwhelming and he hadn’t known if he’d wanted to cry from the physical pain or the pain in his heart that he could finally feel, it’s daggers piercing through his chest. He had decided physical pain was the winner when a hand had appeared - tanned golden by the sun - and had reached for him pulling him out of the water, out of the abyss.

The owner of the hand had been an angel, there had been no other way to describe the being that had pulled him out of the water. Not with the way the sun haloed around him as though it had always meant to be there, or the way the wind whipped through the wavy brown hair that framed a face so beautiful he was sure it could not have come from the earth. And then he smiled, and Seungcheol’s heart had stopped for a second that had stretched into eternity before it had finally started beating again, slow but steady despite its wounds.

He had blinked, once, and then the angel had gone and in its place stood a young man who had been just as warm, just as beautiful, but infinitely more real if the weight that had still sat in his hand was anything to go by. _You asked for a sign,_ the voice in his head had told him and he had gotten one, so he had reached for it, grabbed a hold of it - dog and all- and never looked back.

“Hello, earth to Choi Seungcheol,” Joshua’s voice rings out, bringing him back into the present, in the arms of the second chance he had received. 

“Sorry,” he murmurs, pressing a soft kiss to Joshua’s forehead before turning back to the mantle. This time his eyes stop on the frame right beside the one of Joshua and Nugget, of a blonde boy whose eyes are curved into crescents as he laughs at something outside of the frame. He had been laughing at Seungcheol, of course, during their first day on the job as partners. Seungcheol had been trying to demonstrate (read: show off) how to disarm an armed suspect when he had snatched the gun so hard it had gone flying into his face. Unfortunately, or fortunately, there had been other people around to witness this misfortune, which was he’d ended up with the photo, captured at the exact moment the gun had made contact with his face.

Joshua follows his gaze to the photo and he smiles, bringing a hand up to his face, soft and gentle. He doesn’t say anything, just continues his soft stroking until Seungcheol finally speaks.

“It’s been three years,” Seungcheol whispers, and he feels that familiar pain in his chest, an echo of what he’d felt on the beach all those years ago. “To the day. And sometimes, sometimes I still feel like it should have been me.”

Joshua hums, brushing a stray strand of hair away out his face before leaning forward and resting his head on Seungcheol’s chest, arms pulling him closer, holding him tighter, and Seungcheol feels the same warmth he felt that day return slightly. 

“But it wasn’t you,” Joshua mumbles into his chest, breath warm against his skin where it’s cutting through the thin layer of Seungcheol’s shirt. “You were given the chance to live _because_ of him, and he wouldn’t want you to waste it.”

“I know,” Seungcheol sighs, nuzzling into his hair, the faint smell of their vanilla-scented shampoo tickling at his nose. “I just miss him. More today especially.”

Seungcheol feels it, the date of Jihoon’s death like a blade as it reopens the wounds that he thought had already been sealed. The stitches unravel at the seams and that small part of Seungcheol falls apart again, but this time he has Joshua, who holds the needle and thread ready to pick up the pieces and sew them back together again.

“Let’s go visit him,” Joshua says, pulling away from Seungcheol to look at him, concern hidden away in the depths of his eyes. 

“Really?” Seungcheol asks, more a formality because he knows they will go anyway, and his heart feels warmer at the thought.

Joshua laughs softly, his eyes curving into gentle half-moons, different from Jihoon’s. Prettier. “Of course,” his affirmation is followed quickly by a loud bark and a wet nose pressed into his thigh, which makes them both laugh.

“Looks like Nugget wants to see him too,” Joshua continues, reaching down to give the giant golden retriever a fond pat. “Let’s go, I already have lunch packed.”

Joshua makes to move away but Seungcheol grabs him, hand tugging at Joshua’s wrist until he is pulled back into Seungcheol’s chest with a soft huff.

“What?” Joshua laughs, as he pulls at the stray strands of dog fur that have attached itself to Seungcheol’s shirt, but Seungcheol does nothing, choosing to bury himself in the crook of Joshua’s neck instead. Joshua waits patiently, doing nothing except trace patterns into the small of his back where his arms lie wrapped loosely.

“Thank you, Josh,” Seungcheol says finally, the words heavy as they are mumbled against his skin. “I’m glad you found me that day.”

“Technically, it was Nugget who found you,” Joshua says and Seungcheol can’t help the way his lips automatically curve upwards at the words. “But I’m glad I found you too.”

“I love you,” Seungcheol murmurs, pressing a kiss to the curve of Joshua’s neck and Joshua squirms at the feeling, ticklish.

Joshua laughs, swatting at him as he pulls himself away, holding a hand out for Seungcheol to grab, slightly less golden than it was three years ago as it reached for him on the beach, but no less warm. 

“I love you too. Now, let’s go! Jihoon is waiting.”

Seungcheol nods, smiling as he grabs a hold of Joshua’s outstretched hand and doesn’t look back.

\--- FIN ---

  
  


**Author's Note:**

> If you've made it here then thank you so so much for reading! (I told you it wasn't as dark as it seemed, right?) But either way, I hope you liked it? I feel like I wrote in a style different from what I normally write (I was in a mood, what can I say?) but I hope that it came out okay in the end. Kudos and comments give me life, so please feel free to chuck some of those my way if you enjoyed this fic in any way. ALSO remember to check out the other works in this collection because there truly are so many amazing pieces from this fest! Thank you once again for reading this!❤︎ Find me on [twitter](http://twitter.com/moonfleur_) or [cc](https://curiouscat.me/moonfleur_)


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